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The Fight for Equality–from the Right
Ken Williams already has two strikes against him. He is a Christian pastor. He was gay at one time and found his way back to a heterosexual life and is now married with four kids. And he has a third strike against him as he fights legislation in California that could prevent counseling gays who want to explore the possibility of living as heterosexuals.
Williams was interviewed on the Daily Signal podcast and told his story of realizing he was homosexual, how he re-discovered his male sexuality with a friendship with a woman, and then fell in love with that woman who became his wife. (A partial copy of the interview is here.) He now counsels people who want to deal with same-sex attraction and works with them in a very loving, compassionate way. In a sense, he has lived their story.
When asked if his work with clients was conversion therapy, he was firm in his belief that it was not, and in fact didn’t know anyone who had gone through it:
What’s so common though is people are confused about their identity or their sexuality. They go and they talk it out with a counselor, and the counselor helps them figure out what they want to go toward and leads them that direction … follows what they’re wanting to pursue and helps them go that direction.
So I know tons of people who have been so helped by things that could be labeled as conversion therapy that were merely a person talking with the counselor and figuring out, ‘Why do I feel the way that I do?’
He also acknowledged the damage that Christianity had done to those who believed they were gay:
For so long and in Christian circles it was, this is the mandate, ‘Gay people are detestable. They’re going to hell. They’re terrible,’ or whatever. And there wasn’t any offering for, ‘OK, wait a minute, God loves you and he wants to help you.’ It was just, ‘You shouldn’t be who you are,’ and that can’t be God first of all. And who wants to behave that way?
So I feel some of what we’re experiencing today is a reaction from a society that was holding expectations of people without helping loving them into what that expectation might be.
I so regret that that happened, but the way to fix it now is for all of us to be loving of people without necessarily agreeing.
A number of thoughts came to me as I listened to Williams. He was candid about his own history, and shared his struggles and his fears about his own sexuality. His compassion and caring for others were apparent. Although I am quite sure that he hoped, at some level, that people he counseled would turn to the sexuality they were born with, he also demonstrated that his primary concern was to be an empathetic listener, to help people explore their history, and to help them heal, however it may occur.
Another thought I have been exploring is the process for a person changing his or her sexual orientation. Some research shows that the brain can influence sexuality, although there is not consensus in the medical community:
The functionalities of regions in the brain like the amygdala and the hypothalamus have been proven to be determined genetically and are influenced by hormones. Developments in these regions kick in even before an individual learns cognitive skills or is exposed to environmental and educational settings. But scientists still do not negate the role of environmental factors.
I’m not a scientist, but I do know from my years of practicing and studying meditation that the brain is altered through regular practice. The number of neural pathways is increased, the pre-frontal lobe thickens (which increases a sense of well-being), and many people have other improvements in health-related areas.
Ken Williams cited the fluidity of sexuality and his marriage of 13 years:
As we’ve gone further through marriage, and I’ve continued to work on my own heart and being part of that men’s purity group, where I feel like I’m constantly getting better as a man and taking more responsibility for my life and just, I don’t know, continuing to grow.
A lot of my friends that I know that share my similar experience, it becomes kind of fluid that way, as far as your understanding of yourself and of your sexual desires, they can shift. Even the APA will tell you that, that there can be a shift in sexual desires. So contrary to popular opinion, they can shift both ways.
Given the fact that the brain actually can change, why couldn’t a person who wanted to be heterosexual develop neural pathways that would be focused on developing heterosexual attitudes? If people who were deeply religious wanted to change, in order to serve G-d more appropriately, and took steps to do so, why shouldn’t they be allowed, even encouraged to change? Again, I want to emphasize that this type of counseling should be voluntary and can’t be forced on a person.
Deeply concerning to me is that we are making alternative lifestyles normal, and even criticizing people who want to follow their gender of birth. Why shouldn’t this type of therapy be encouraged, if they are interested? Why should they be pressured to pursue a gay lifestyle that makes them feel inauthentic and irreligious?
The problem in 2019 is that a bill in California that was tabled in 2018 is being proposed again. It is called the Equality Act and would essentially override the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). These types of laws have been used in other states:
These state laws have been used to shut down Catholic adoption agencies that only place children with a mother (biologically female) and a father (biologically male). They have also been used, famously, to compel people working in the wedding industry, like florists, photographers and bakers, to provide their services for same-sex ceremonies, in violation of their religious conscience and without regard to the availability of such services from vendors who would be happy to provide them.
But the future implications are even worse, if that’s possible. Monica Burke of the Heritage Foundation describes what has already occurred:
The Equality Act would be used to compel speech. Virginia high school teacher Peter Vlaming lost his job for something he did not say. A county school board voted unanimously to fire the veteran teacher over the objections of his students after he refused to comply with administrators’ orders to use masculine pronouns in referring to a female student who identifies as transgender. Vlaming did his best to accommodate the student without violating his religious belief that God created human beings male and female, using the student’s new name and simply refraining from using pronouns altogether.
Unfortunately, the school still considered this a violation of its anti-discrimination policy.
Ken Williams is taking a stand against the Equality Act. Ironically, he is the one fighting for equality, not those who sponsor this bill. Since California is historically in the lead for cultural change, let’s hope they can be stopped.
Published in Law
All things are possible when two sincere, intelligent people are actually interested in what the other has to say. This is one of the most rewarding exchanges I’ve had on Ricochet, @catorand. Thank you.
Kevin,
You are 100% right and this ground has been encroached upon egregiously by the “gender revolutionaries”. Their social blitzkrieg has rolled up a lot of quick and easy victories.
I think they may be running out of gas. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
Regards,
Jim
“You can’t say that, because I called ‘settled’!”
The one I’m becoming intimately aware of is the counseling of trans patients.
There were/are supposed to be regulations on pursuing hormone therapy and surgery of 1 year of therapy and some time “role playing”, but given my experience, those don’t exist.
It would appear the current mode of therapy is to simply confirm and pursue the change, even when the patient presents with other issues. I thought the time limit was to address other counseling needs as well as giving the patient time to really weigh the decision.
I’m not seeing that.
And yeah, it matters, because hormones and surgery have lifelong repercussions on an otherwise healthy body that you don’t come back from.
I agree with you about the need for a “go slow” approach to transitioning, especially for children presenting as trans. There are a lot of perfectly legitimate and serious questions in this area. That’s just not the question I wanted to discuss with Susan.
I got a ‘go slow’ approach for transitioning for children who present as trans; none – no medicine, no surgery. Not until we know far more than we currently do.
Hell no until they are adults, what ever the drinking age in their state is.
This is where Cato is a radical and looses all credibility.
Let’s be careful about name-calling, please.
We are talking about children and changing their lives permanently. Good grief.
I know, Kevin, and personal attacks are still out-of-bounds.
Heaven’s Susan, that’s hardly the worst thing I’ve been called here.
Kevin, I’m not sure if I disagree with you all that much or not. Mostly I just know that I don’t know much about the issue and so am reluctant to categorically rule anything out.
I can tell you a LOT about what it’s like to grow up gay. I did it myself and know hundreds of others who have, including my nearest sister and my husband, and radiating out in degrees of closeness from there. There are some commonalities that are bordering on universal in our stories.
I know next to nothing about being trans. I’m not. If I know anybody who is it’s only in passing and there’s nobody who’s name comes to mind that I know personally. So I’m a little reluctant to drive a stake in the ground when it comes to judging that experience and what’s best for those people. I share your concern about irreparable choices though, and I share Susan’s belief that at least up to a certain age, children are still figuring out what they are (I’m not sure that age is 21 in these cases, but it’s not 6 either). All in all, when I said “go slow” I didn’t mean “come back in two weeks,” I meant “take this decision very seriously, and be more reluctant to make it the younger the person involved.” Beyond that, I just don’t feel in a position to say. I will say though that I could easily imagine a minimum age for hormone therapy, and another (later) age for any surgery. The latter might be 21, or at least 18, in my mind. I don’t know. Mostly I’m just humbly acknowledging my ignorance and hoping somebody else can figure that one out. If that’s “radical” – so be it.
Cato, I didn’t mean a personal sling at you. I weighed your position with what I consider reasonable concerning children. In that light I view your position as radical.
I do appreciate your cool demeanor concerning these volatile subjects.
We, at least most of us are conservatives here. If there is any element of society we should refrain from deviating from the historical norm, it is children. Especially concerning sex.
Sex is one of the most wonderful things God has given us. However, even a secular athiest can see sex can also be one of the most destructive things to mankind when misused.
Peace.
@catorand and @kevinschulte, you both make me proud and humbled to be a writer on Ricochet. Bless you both!
Quasi-appropros, how many people who oppose circumcision favor sex reassignment surgey in the young?
The overlap there’s gotta be pretty tiny. I don’t think there are many people in either camp, so the number in both has to be de minimus. I take your point that they’re negatively correlated though. I suspect they are.
For most of the 20th century, the behavioral approach – psychological and psychoanalytic – was the only approach to the causes of homosexuality; e.g., the weak and/or absent father (but not “motherly” sisters, as far as I can recall). Today, you’re absolutely right, it would be hard to get this kind of research funded. My guess would be that, like research on IQ and heredity, it continues at a low level, in obscure journals and under titles impenetrable to the layman.
The theory of sexually antagonistic selection was, I think, originally developed based on the seemingly paradoxical genetics of certain insect species. It took many years for biologists to realize it applies to human beings as well.
More than you think, if you count people who oppose so-called female circumcision.
Fair enough. I was thinking about male. Outside of the traditional religious cultures that practice it, is there anybody who doesn’t oppose female circumcision?
To be precise, no religion requires it, but certain countries/cultures require it. That might be what you meant.
According to Wikipedia, “The opposition to the practice is not without its critics, particularly among anthropologists, who have raised difficult questions about cultural relativism and the universality of human rights.” These anthros are progressives, of course. (The Wikipedia article makes tough reading.)
At the purely rhetorical level, I would agree that opposition to female genital mutilation is very high.
As a practical matter, however, we could say there is virtually no effective opposition. In the very first prosecution in US history, a judge just struck down the law as unconstitutional. The DoJ says the law will have to be rewritten; but I don’t know if anything is actually happening in that direction.
A few glimmers of light: the first successful prosecution in UK history occurred a couple of months ago. It’s been illegal there since 1985!
I was about to give up on this topic, until you made the statements above. Totally spot on. Thank you.
Until I hear recent testimony that demonstrates widespread use of abusive conversion therapies still being practiced today, I am thinking we’ve mostly moved past the horrors of electrotherapy from the early 20th century – something that was widely used for a large number of mental illnesses which is now viewed as repugnantly unethical even for things we still consider serious (and dangerous) mental illnesses.
The only place such technology is still in use is capital punishment and the very rare voluntary use for severe medical issues with a mental component – like severe eating disorders – where other therapies have been exhausted.
For now, when I hear “conversion therapy”, I’m going to assume the therapy is far more along the lines of our own @saintaugustine ‘s writings or similar, reserved to talk therapy and counseling – not coersion.
While I know the history of treatment for homosexuality has its horrors, I lack sufficient evidence of current on going practices to think otherwise. If such were the case, we would have the same issues in discussing treatment for the mentally ill (who were also treated with the same repulsive technology)… and currently, the only issues we largely have there is limiting or impairing freedom.
I think that is a wise choice, @cm. Williams knew no one who had experienced such extreme therapy, and I found him very credible. My hope, like you, is that these issues will be dealt with more compassionately and helpfully.
Not all coercion involves electrodes. “Talk therapy” can in fact do enormous harm to a child struggling to come to grips with very powerful and unalterable feelings that his parents, his friends, his school, and his church all tell him are foul and vile and sinful and disgusting. And when coupled with threats of social ostracism and impoverishment due to being disowned by family that child is absolutely coerced into fighting his nature (almost always futility) and usually into believing the lies about himself that he’s being told. It is unbelievably ugly and dangerous for the child and absolutely no electrodes are necessary to make it so.
That is a good point indeed.
I think it is destructive for schools to tell kids that its wonderful to be a homosexual or the 21 flavors of gender. This is where we are and it is disgraceful.
I think that Stina was saying that, just like we stopped using electrodes for treatment, we are hopefully no longer using conversion therapy, because it is damaging and inappropriate. That’s how I understood her.
Cato, so that you know where I stand. I am not anti homosexual. I think if this is how you wish to live, that is fine with me. I do think it is against God’s will and morally wrong. However, many things are, that are legal. My beef is the proselytizing of the lifestyle by agents of the state. If a kid has these feelings the policy of a school should be indifference. The reason for the school is to educate. Period. Other than reproductive education, the kid’s sexual development should be a family matter, not the state’s. To do otherwise, I consider child abuse.
I knew this would come up eventually. Very nice to see it come up first at Ricochet in a friendly manner.
The background:
People talk about the “conversion” of Augustine, which can be misleading if you’re not careful but is a wonderful word for studying Augustine if you are. Meanwhile Martha Nussbaum wrote a wonderful book called The Therapy of Desire about the ancient Stoics, Epicureans, and others. I noticed that all this stuff comes together in Augustine and that in his theology/philosophy desire needs conversion as well as therapy. So I used that as a title for my dissertation and the book into which I later revised it.
The Conversion and Therapy of Desire: Augustine’s Theology of Desire in the Cassiciacum Dialogues. Cheap on Kindle.
Some time after it was too late it occurred to me that eventually this title would be linked to the concept of gay “conversion therapy.”
In fact it has nothing at all to do with gay conversion therapy.
However, if there’s anything right with any version of conversion therapy, it probably has something to do with Augustine.
I think the first I heard of “conversion therapy” was in reference to something Focus on the Family was doing in Florida. It didn’t sound bad at the time–things like prayer to change our desires.
The first I heard of its association with electroshock therapy was probably a reference on @andrewklavan’s podcast. I was a bit bewildered.
I know basically nothing at all about conversion therapy. If you ask me about it, you got the wrong Ricochetus.
You want @aarong3eason.
Specifically, you want the episode of the AK-47 podcast (not about guns!) where they talk to the homosexual gentleman about conversion therapy.
If you wanna talk about Augustine, I’m available. Or if you wanna ask what sort of “conversion therapy” might be ok on Augustinian ethics, I can speculate. Anyone interested in a traditional Christian (or, I daresay, a Jewish or an Islamic or a natural law) approach might find just as useful the perspective in the Obergefell amicus brief (available here) submitted by “Same-Sex Attracted Men and Their Wives.”